Game On!

Chapter 59

After the party I was busy in my chamber of machinations, but not alone. Arrayed along the wall in chairs were all the skeletons involved in the fight. All of them were utterly silent aside from the occasional shifting.

Since they weren’t alive and I was squeamish anyway, I didn’t have a lot of options for punishments. Being bored as hell for a day was the best I could come up with. Even then, I’d been a soft touch with the chairs.

Not that it really mattered. It wasn’t like they would get tired, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to make them stand for hours on end. My first impulse after shouting they were grounded had been to shut them in their rooms for the day without door privileges. Chris’s claustrophobia had made me rethink that.

Chris’s general behavior had also made me rethink leaving him alone if the punishment was going to work. So, they’d all ended up in my chamber of machinations, where I could keep an orb on them.

“You know, you could literally order them not to do shit like that and they’d have to listen, right?” Agony asked me. I flinched a little, knowing it was true on an instinctive level but not liking it. Chris and company weren’t happy to be punished, but they could and had objected. They’d also been whispering amongst themselves when I was distracted, which got a couple extra hours tacked onto their sentence.

“Yeah, they’d love that. Just like you love the profanity filter,” I said, rolling my orbs. Agony studiously looked away.

“Just saying,” He muttered.

“They’ve mentioned they didn’t even get to talk when other dungeon masters summoned them. I don’t want to be that kind of an asshole,” I replied, feeling tired. It felt gross to know I could compel any of my denizens to behave however I wanted, regardless of their wishes.

“I can't say I’d want you to either,” Agony conceded.

I nodded, getting back to work. The skeletons who weren’t on my shit list for the day had been texting me since the party had ended. Agony had decided to stay for a couple days and they’d had an idea for a surprise that required my help.

“So this is your process? Sketch, layout, walk it, tinker?” Agony asked. I could tell he wasn’t having the best time watching me work, but I couldn’t blame him. It was kind of like sports, always more fun to play than to watch. He was probably also full up to his gills, thanks to the tutorial.

“Yeah… Sometimes I skip the layout with my extra tiles, but I rarely end up keeping those designs. That's more just to give me something to do when I’m feeling uninspired,” I explained.

“That or work on one of my side projects,” I added.

“Side projects?” Agony asked.

“Like the poker chips, games, some art,” I explained.

“Oh, the art for the temple?” Agony asked.

“Huh? No, that's work stuff. Side projects are just stuff to keep all work and no play from making 42 a dull girl,” I replied. To illustrate my point, I took some items out of my inventory and placed them on a makeshift table for Agony to inspect.

“What the fuck?” Agony asked, sounding delighted. He’d immediately been drawn to a rough draft of a painting. It was a parody of Washington crossing Delaware. I was at the front with the coat worn like a cape, but with a proper powdered wig and hat. Stalin and Blackmore pushing up from either side and the skeletons arranged like rowers behind me. Rowers who were playing cards instead of rowing.

I could have technically called the painting done and gone to the final draft, but the skeletons were generic. I kept noodling it, changing poses, painting specific skeletons, and adding details as I got to know them and their personalities. The rest of the odds and ends on the table fascinated him as well, and he took his time studying all of my makeshift beanbag experiments in particular.

While Agony was busy with that, I quickly did some tile work in my interface. It wasn’t pretty but the stub layers in the green section were filled out with a decent labyrinth style floor plan. I quickly texted interested parties before Agony got done with his inspection.

“Chris, Kessia, Angelo, and Icarus, you’re all free to go,” I said. Chris bolted without needing further prompting. Kessia left in a sulky kind of trudge that I didn’t know how to interpret. She’d resisted being grounded indignantly but without a specific reason beyond not wanting to be punished.

Icarus was the only outright surprise in the group. I’d only recently started acquiring halflings and he was one of the first. He’d jumped into the fight with gusto but completely clammed up and refused to explain why. A fact which put him on a short list of skeletons I was keeping an eye on.

“You can stay and hang out if you want to,” I offered to Kessia. I took her apparent hostility at face value, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be mistaken. She could have been shy or possibly upset about something like being ignored. That Kessia made an indignant noise and immediately started power walking out disabuse me of that notion. I really needed to take a minute and figure out what was up with her eventually.

“She seems nice,” Agony said archly.

“Kessia is Kessia,” I said diplomatically. As much as I might not like Kessia, there wasn’t a reason to casually talk shit about her either.

“One of my other side projects isn’t exactly mine. When I get materials I upgrade their quality, then hand them over to the skeletons to use. Some of them have trade skills,” I said, not bothering with a transition.

“Was that why some of them were wearing clothes?” Agony asked, stone eyebrows creeping up toward his flaming hair.

“Pretty much, those are mostly Henry’s handiwork. He’s the Chevalier,” I explained.

“Huh, I was wondering about that. It was weird to see, it made the others seem…” Agony trailed off in embarrassment.

“Naked? Yeah, once you see it, it can be unseen,” I offered cheerfully. It didn’t bother me anymore, but it was jarring at first. Now I just thought it would be fun to do historical parody art featuring the skeletons. They would make fun decorations for the necropolis if the skeletons agreed.

“Great,” Agony said with a dramatic sigh. I laughed at that and he joined me after trying to keep a straight face for a beat. Finally, I got the text I was waiting for.

“Want to hit the necropolis? I feel like we're due for a break,” I asked, doing my best to sound casual.

“Hell yeah!” Agony agreed, without even a pretense of hesitation. I rolled my orbs and then teleported us into the entry chamber behind the mirror. Agony looked around in confusion. Almost all the skeletons were present and there was an excited atmosphere.

“Agony, welcome to the first ever dungeon delvers league game!” I said brightly. I opened a screen in share mode and expanded it massively. I set it infront of the Mirror just above the height of the tallest skeleton. It wouldn’t stop them from walking through, but I liked to keep the view of the area beyond the mirror unobstructed.

“Dungeon what now?” Agony asked in open confusion.

“You’ll see,” I chirped. Henry flagged us over and I found he’d set up a new quilt on a riser. Dawn was with him, and we all lounged like picnickers. The screen showed the security feed of the area just in front of the dungeon's formal entrance. A group of skeletons, the Azure Devil Turkeys, were the descending team.

The game was a comedy of errors. The skeletons were intimately familiar with the dungeon’s interior, but were contending with the environment as an enemy for the first time. Setting off traps wouldn’t kill them, but if they got hit they received penalties and respawing teammates were out for the rest of the mock raid.

“This is insane,” Agony coo’ed happily from my shoulder. I was pleased he was enjoying the show and proud of the skeletons. I’d helped a little, but the majority of the rules and structure choices had been made by committee.

The monsters, with only minimal prompting, were pleased as punch to beat the ever living shit out of each other. With no real death possible for any of the parties participating, they didn’t have a reason to hold back. I didn’t bother hiding my discomfort when the Azure Devil Turkeys reached the mole encounter.

Up to this point the combat had been relatively bloodless, but the smallest mole was the size of a man and they were mammals. They would bleed. Despite that, they’d been enthusiastic about participating much like the bats. As much as I found it unnerving, they were free to do so as long they wished.

Finally, the Devil Turkeys reached the mirror level and the defending team was up. The Black Demon Rabbits had been on standby on the lowest riser, watching the descent with interest. The room was full of excited cheers, booing, and curses as chips were won and lost with dizzying speed.

The descending team would make its points from how well it navigated the dungeon and its combat performance. The defending team would only be able to earn points if they managed to defeat the other team. They’d switch places later in the season however, so a loss in a single match wouldn’t be decisive.

“Ten chips on the Turkeys!” I called out. I was caught up in the frenzy as the two groups faced off. Bets could be placed until they crossed blades. Dawn noted my bet in a book, bookie almost by default as one the few literate skeletons.

No one held back, even when they reached their own level. The defending Black Demon Rabbits came out of the mirror hot. They took the win in the end, but the Azure Devil Turkeys gathered a lot of points, so their season was far from over.

I was about to ask Agony what he’d thought as the teams prepared to re-enter, but he’d gone off like a shot to welcome them himself. I laughed, happy to see everyone having fun.